Now their foot is in the door...
on
Usenet Gag Order
·
· Score: 1
Threats of physical violence or other speech designed to cause harm against someone are not protected by the First Amendment. Neither is posting private and personal information as happened here.
That being said, more was going on here. References were made about the coarse and disgusting language, and about how the posts were off-topic. That shouldn't have even a consideration. The police also had no business trying to moderate that newsgroup. If they want to post as individuals, fine. However if they post as agents of the law, that is not fine.
My opinion is that this was the perfect case for the judiciary to try to crack open a door for control of the Internet. Since threats and other illegal actions were involved, a plausible case for judicial action can be made. Statements by the Judge about the coarse language being inappropriate for the newsgroup and the police involvement in trying to moderate the newsgroup have convinced me however that this is just a smoke screen. I don't mean that there was an actual conspiracy here, but that the police and judiciary are organizations that like controlling people. It is what they are designed to do. Both of these organizations jumped at the chance to get a foothold where they have had none. If this had really been a case about threats and intimidation, the decision would have been rooted in well-established precedent, not new law made up from whole cloth by the judge.
The American government can't regulate the newsgroup, but it can regulate (coerce) it's citizens.
Personally I see this as a judge working outside of the Constitution, just applying what feels good without thought to right, freedom, or the First Amendment.
Thanks for the compliment. I'm glad you found my response interesting.
I found your stance in your second post to be much more limited in scope, and much more focused as well. As I understand your logic, it is as follows:
1: If you believe that it is wrong to eat food in front of a starving person and
2: You buy stuff like computer cables made with child or conscript labor in china
3: Then you are by your own definition evil. That you do not see the misfortune that you base your gain on is simply a cop-out.
If the person considers point one to be true, then I'd agree with you. By their own definition they are behaving wrongly. They should do their best to not buy such products and to have such products outlawed.
My stance is slightly different. I don't consider number 1 to be evil. I would consider it ugly and stupid however. Because if I was the starving person, I'm going to get some food. If you have to die for me to get to it, then so be it. I would not even consider the action evil, since it was necessary to simply survive.
It is the same logic as why you would drop bombs on a munitions plant if you are at war even if the plant is next to an orphanage. Neither side is necessarily evil, but you do what is necessary. In my philosophy, if survival is at stake, then most actions that would otherwise be evil are not.
The end result is that I will buy products from places like China. I don't consider it evil to do so. However I would prefer to see China become free and capatistic, even if it raised the price of my computer cables. The last thing any of us need is to be the people in the restaurant when a mob of starving people burst in.
You have an interesting moral stance. As I understand your argument, if you are living well and someone else is not, then you are morally wrong. Akin to a murderer according to another post of yours.
First let me ask, what is your definition of 'evil'? It is important, because it can mean many things to different people.
Personally I would say that anything that is 'evil' could by definition be stopped by force if necessary. Your stance that some people being well off while others are not is a central moral component of Communism. The answer is to use force, lethal if necessary, to even out the wealth. Of course in actual practice, when these policies have been implemented, everyone becomes destitute, except possibly for a few individuals. Privacy and freedom must be crushed as a matter of course to implement this exchange of wealth. Innovation and work ethic cease to make much sense when everything you make above the least productive person is taken and redistributed. But at least you're a good person living in a good society. Assuming there isn't anyone in the world more destitute than you. Then you have to give them equally of your stuff as well. Also you have to destroy the rich countries that don't follow your philosophy because they are promoting 'evil' in the form of murder and greed.
Another point about your philosophy. I believe that morals exist as guidelines to help people behave in a manner that both constructive and predictable. It helps hold society together and gives everyone a common frame of reference as to what is acceptable and proper. It isn't really possible to be 'good' under your definition unless you are one of the poorest people on the planet. Even the homeless in America live like kings compared to people in the ghettos of many third world countries, so even they don't count. If I am evil to the point of being akin to a murder just by having a good job, then there isn't any reason for me to even try to be anything other than pure evil. Your philosophy attacks the underpinnings of why you even bother to have morals, and if people widely accepted it, we would not become a utopia, but would sink into true decadence and evil.
My morals are similar to the 'Natural Law' principle. Everyone has certain rights such as the right to speak their mind, be able to protect themselves, own property, and so forth. Everyone can do what he or she wants so long as they do not infringe on someone else's rights. In other words my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins. As long as I follow these rules, I am a reasonably moral person. This morality gives me guidelines on what I absolutely must not do.
That being said, the above philosophy is the minimum for someone to not be evil. That does not mean someone is good in my book however. If someone is totally callous to true suffering, that person is probably not someone I would want to associate with. In other words, they're an asshole. However being an asshole doesn't make them evil.
As for the specific examples you mention, such as places where a dinner costs more than many people make in a month, I would be less concerned about my personal 'evil' in living well, and instead more interested in working toward a better society. In many places that are like you describe however, working for such ends are often illegal and you'll tend to disappear...
In the case of question 11, there would be a moderate chance that the woman could save herself and her daughter through the use of that device. Even if she didn't, on a grand scale, that country would undergo massive change. There is nothing more destructive to a tyranny than full access by everyone to untraceable communication devices. With said devices people can organize in secret, distribute information between themselves and the world, ask for help, perhaps arrange for food or even guns. So I don't agree that the point of the question was that the web is useless in the day to day world.
I also think he pointed to question 11 and said the things he did about it in the hopes that most people would answer that question. It was a clever psychological ploy on his part.
Portable computing devices already exist. This device isn't aimed at that market. It is aimed at the Walkman market. By creating a specialized device, all kinds of shortcuts can be taken that improve performance for what the device is designed for while lowering cost and size. For some strange reason, people like tools that are designed to do one task extremely well, rather than several tasks passably. This goes triple for audio devices.
As long as those rules do not violate the law, sure. But that is the question, isn't it? The phone company cannot listen in on your conversations even though you use their system.
I suspect CMU has put itself in the position of no longer being a 'Common Carrier', and have made themselves very vulnerable legally. They probably would have been better off just making sure their security wasn't compromised and left it at that.
You got that right. All of the share names are broadcast, including the...$ ones. Microsoft left it up to the various networking programs to be nice enough not to display these 'hidden' shares. Totally retarded. It should have been blocked at the source in the first place.
Anyone looking for hidden stuff on networked computers will use a program that shows the hidden shares. Its a total no-brainer, and there is plenty of software out there that will happily show you these shares. For example most remote administrative software will do this.
Hmmm. So if the password is easy to guess, it's not illegal to break in? I'm sure that would hold water in a court of law.
Judge: So you admit breaking into the bank's accounting system?
Defendant: Sure, but the password was really easy. I only tried a few obvious ones. It was just the name of the bank in reverse.
Judge: Oh. Well, case dismissed then.
Easy or hard doesn't change the nature of the act itself. If CMU broke into private computers, then they should be tried and convicted just like anyone else. Of course they'll probably get away with it since they're a large institution.
I've been a Star Trek fan for years. I'm old enough to have seen it when it first came out, and I liked it then, and I still do. All that being said, I just don't watch Star Trek any more. I watched TNG regularly, a little of DS9, and a whole three episodes of Voyager. I just can't stomach it anymore. The main characters aren't likable. Ever notice how the background characters are usually MORE complex in the Star Trek spinoffs? The number of background characters who became important because they turned out to be more interesting to the viewers is amazing. The main characters are simply too sublime for anyone to care about or like. In the original series, the main characters were extremely noble, but they were not humerlous paragons of duty, justice, and the Federation Way(tm). Star Trek next made the mistake of not keeping their universe believable or consistant. Everything occurs in a vacuum. They have episodes where they replace limbs and fix aging through use of the transporter. This is just one example of too many to count where they introduce a major technological advancement, and then have it disappear. In the original series, no real attempt was made to explain things like warp drive or the transporter. This was a Good Thing(tm) because it helped discourage cheap fixes using the technology. The capabilities of their technology was also more clearly defined, and so you didn't have nearly as much techno-babble B.S. The TNG movies have all been two hour long TV episodes. Who wants to spend $8 to see a two-hour long TV episode of anything? I could go on and on, but the truth is that these are symptoms, not the disease. I believe the real problems is: They don't have someone in charge of the universe as a whole. Gene is gone, and no one is steering the boat anymore. Mostly looks to be a bunch of different power cliques turning out various unrelated episodes and movies of varying quality. The original Star Trek was canceled before it could degenerate into something worthless. It was kind of obvious that they were running out of ideas, but they (were forced) to quit while they were ahead, and so were able to come back. What if instead the show had ran on until it ran itself into the ground? This is like the Elvis question - would Elvis have remained popular if he had never died? Or would he have faded into obscurity? At this rate, I'm betting on obscurity for Star Trek. Oh, shadows of Star Trek will hang around for a while in the form of lame spinoffs and stuff to siphon money away from the die-hard core fan-base, but that's all. I've heard people mention a Academy spinoff for example. Whoopee. That'd be the ultimate in inward-looking "who-cares" spin-offs. From Marco Polo to water polo. It would be cheap to produce though, and would fulfill the function I mentioned of siphoning money from a dwindling fan-base. Oh well, all things come to an end.
I saw this film subtitled early this year. The animation quality was simply amazing. It had some of the best camera work I have every seen, and the pacing was well done as well.
I am also a huge fan of Miyuzaki, and for the work that the "two horse power" studios produce. Nausicaa is still my favorite anime movie of all time, and the manga is one of the greatest literary works I've ever read.
That being said, I didn't care for this movie all that much. No one was more surprised than me:) I didn't like any of the characters, and so I didn't care what happened to them. Also, the moral of the movie took center stage, and thus weakened it. Overall, the movie just didn't have much depth to it. The movie also lacked an element of fun. Miyuzaki has produced fluff before, but when he produces fluff, it is usually fun fluff.
As for Neil Gaiman, everything he touches is gold. I havn't seen the dubbed version yet, but I have total faith in Neil Gaiman's ability. His Sandman series is a work of true genius, and I have no doubt that he did a good job with this.
The real story here is the mainstreaming of anime that is going on. I've been involved in anime for many years, and I've seen the anime tide growing. It will be interesting to see what impact this movie has. If it does well in the test theatres and is widely released, it could be considerable. But even if it doesn't do well, it won't matter that much. Anime has been eroding at the cultural and commercial barriers for a long time, and it will continue to do so until the dam breaks. As it stands, anime is already being mainstreamed at a very fast pace. It's not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of when and how.
In-house animation rendering. Several of us are working on animation software for generating animated movies out of home without the need for Crays and SGI machines that companies like Disney or ILM can afford.
As mentioned in the article, the number can be generated in a number of ways. What is important is that the number is unique and known to the rest of the world, not that it is random or that the number includes your hardware address. Currently we have servers (DHCP)to hand out IP addresses, and DNS servers to track who has them. You can generate any IP address you want, so long as it is unique and that the DNS servers, routers, and so forth know the IP address so they can route to it.
In other words, if you don't want to use the hardware address option, you can use one of the tried and true methods that have always been used to generate unique IP addresses.
Also as the article pointed out, devices that don't need to be contacted, but just want to spit info out somewhere don't need a stable IP address.
I know a lot of friends who visit Japan a lot or who have lived there. One of them plays what he calls "Spot the ugly gaijin with the beautiful Japanese girlfriend:)" According to them, the reason that foreign (not necessarily just caucasians) guys have such good luck is because the Japanese women aren't used to being treated nicely. Doing things like complimenting a woman, holding the door open for her, pulling out her chair, and generally treating her as special is not part of the culture. When Japanese women are treated like this buy someone, it totally floors them. I have a number of first hand accounts of this. Word gets around, and the end result is that a number of Japanese women who want to be treated this way can only get it from foreigners.
Another reason is that guys from countries like America tend to be much more open about approaching women. One of my friends described how a dance he went to, all of the Japanese guys mostly hung out together, and didn't really approach the girls very aggressively. The reserved nature of Japanese society gives outsiders an edge in these things.
Anyway, I don't claim this to be true, just my opinions based one what some friends who have spent a lot of time in Japan said.
Any Japanese women with foreign boyfriends or husbands care to comment? Nothing like getting it from the source.
Actually, a faster chip is never overkill for people who play games on the computer. Better graphics, more complex engines, etc all become possible with more CPU power, RAM, bus speeds and so forth.
Support for games, not scientific calculations, is one of the primary forces pushing companies to make more powerful CPU's. I guarantee you that gamers are much more than 0.1% of the marketshare.
If your Grandpa is only going to use the computer for email, web surfing, and word processing, it probably won't matter what OS you use as long as you set it up for him in such a way that it is easy for him.
However it is doubtful that will remain true. If your grandfather gets comfortable with the computer, he'll start noticing software packages that will let him do other fun things. Examples include tracking investments, budgets, clip-art, a sailboat simulation (or whatever) program, a landscaping program, etc etc. You can lump all games into this as well. The list is endless. Your grandfather will see these in the stores and SOMETHING is going to catch his eye. Bet on it being a Windows program.
Then there is the new hardware he might want to buy. Gee, everything says things like "Windows 98 required."
Right now Linux is an up-and-comer OS, and ultimately it will make inroads into the Windows desktop marketshare. But not yet. For the average user who wants to be able to buy a wide range of software at the store, Windows is currently the best choice.
When I saw the headline "Major Star Wars Character to Die in Next Book" I instantly got suspicious about who it would be, and my fears were quickly confirmed. They kill off Chewbacca. Gee, what a surprise. The trusty (half-breed, black, clownish, whatever) sidekick dies to save the hero. *SIGH*
After the debacle of "The Phantom Picture" they made a marketing decision to heighten interest in the series by killing someone off. It couldn't be any of the really important (human) characters, so that left the droids and Chewie.
Nothing like letting plot and character development in a series be driven primarily by what spin agents and marketers think will sell to turn said series into crap. You always wind up the same flavor of regurgitated pap.
Because the ability to own a gun is the last guarantee versus tyranny. Few Americans, and even fewer non-Americans grasp that the ownership of guns by the populace is as much for protection vs. the government as it is anything else. Hunting doesn't even enter into it. Our Supreme Court decides gun issues on military issues. They ruled that sawed-off shotguns could be made illegal BECAUSE the plaintiff (forget the name) did not prove, or even attempt to prove, that a sawed off shot-gun has MILITARY value. Does your country have an armed military? America was founded by revolutionaries overthrowing what at the time would be considered the proper government - the British.
Without the Second Amendment, our Constitution (or anybody else's Constitution) simply becomes another pretty piece of paper that can be thrown out when desired by someone with enough power. While freedom America is being erroded over time, gun ownership of the populace is a final check in our series of checks and balances. If things become intolerable, as a last resort the populace can always take matters into their own hands.
There is also the philosophical concept on which the Constitution is based. It is the idea that everyone has specific rights, and these rights cannot be taken from them unless they first infringe upon someone else's rights. The ability to be armed was enumerated as being one of those. In that light, taking away someone's abilty to arm (and thus protect themselves) is akin to violating any one of their rights - trying to take their property, trying to control their speech, taking their liberty, etc. Gun ownership has little impact on day to day living however, so it is an easy right to attack. Most people don't notice or don't care. They will notice or care if you try to tell them where to live, what to say, and take their stuff.
It's a concept that most of the world (including most Americans) don't understand or even agree with. I just happen to be one of those who does agree with it.
My reading of the article is that the track is used for "launch assist", meaning that it doesn't totally replace the rockets. It just means that the fuel needed to achieve escape velocity is considerably reduced.
Does anyone have more exact info on this? The article doesn't go into detail about how much of the actual fuel is replaced by this technology. It does mention a 20 percent reduction in the overall mass of the rocket, but what does that translate into? Anyone know?
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That being said, more was going on here. References were made about the coarse and disgusting language, and about how the posts were off-topic. That shouldn't have even a consideration. The police also had no business trying to moderate that newsgroup. If they want to post as individuals, fine. However if they post as agents of the law, that is not fine.
My opinion is that this was the perfect case for the judiciary to try to crack open a door for control of the Internet. Since threats and other illegal actions were involved, a plausible case for judicial action can be made. Statements by the Judge about the coarse language being inappropriate for the newsgroup and the police involvement in trying to moderate the newsgroup have convinced me however that this is just a smoke screen. I don't mean that there was an actual conspiracy here, but that the police and judiciary are organizations that like controlling people. It is what they are designed to do. Both of these organizations jumped at the chance to get a foothold where they have had none. If this had really been a case about threats and intimidation, the decision would have been rooted in well-established precedent, not new law made up from whole cloth by the judge.
Personally I see this as a judge working outside of the Constitution, just applying what feels good without thought to right, freedom, or the First Amendment.
Eeek! You managed to figure out that my philosophy is mostly Rationalist. Obvously I need to couch my rhetoric in more convuluted language ;-)
I found your stance in your second post to be much more limited in scope, and much more focused as well. As I understand your logic, it is as follows:
1: If you believe that it is wrong to eat food in front of a starving person and
2: You buy stuff like computer cables made with child or conscript labor in china
3: Then you are by your own definition evil. That you do not see the misfortune that you base your gain on is simply a cop-out.
If the person considers point one to be true, then I'd agree with you. By their own definition they are behaving wrongly. They should do their best to not buy such products and to have such products outlawed.
My stance is slightly different. I don't consider number 1 to be evil. I would consider it ugly and stupid however. Because if I was the starving person, I'm going to get some food. If you have to die for me to get to it, then so be it. I would not even consider the action evil, since it was necessary to simply survive.
It is the same logic as why you would drop bombs on a munitions plant if you are at war even if the plant is next to an orphanage. Neither side is necessarily evil, but you do what is necessary. In my philosophy, if survival is at stake, then most actions that would otherwise be evil are not.
The end result is that I will buy products from places like China. I don't consider it evil to do so. However I would prefer to see China become free and capatistic, even if it raised the price of my computer cables. The last thing any of us need is to be the people in the restaurant when a mob of starving people burst in.
First let me ask, what is your definition of 'evil'? It is important, because it can mean many things to different people.
Personally I would say that anything that is 'evil' could by definition be stopped by force if necessary. Your stance that some people being well off while others are not is a central moral component of Communism. The answer is to use force, lethal if necessary, to even out the wealth. Of course in actual practice, when these policies have been implemented, everyone becomes destitute, except possibly for a few individuals. Privacy and freedom must be crushed as a matter of course to implement this exchange of wealth. Innovation and work ethic cease to make much sense when everything you make above the least productive person is taken and redistributed. But at least you're a good person living in a good society. Assuming there isn't anyone in the world more destitute than you. Then you have to give them equally of your stuff as well. Also you have to destroy the rich countries that don't follow your philosophy because they are promoting 'evil' in the form of murder and greed.
Another point about your philosophy. I believe that morals exist as guidelines to help people behave in a manner that both constructive and predictable. It helps hold society together and gives everyone a common frame of reference as to what is acceptable and proper. It isn't really possible to be 'good' under your definition unless you are one of the poorest people on the planet. Even the homeless in America live like kings compared to people in the ghettos of many third world countries, so even they don't count. If I am evil to the point of being akin to a murder just by having a good job, then there isn't any reason for me to even try to be anything other than pure evil. Your philosophy attacks the underpinnings of why you even bother to have morals, and if people widely accepted it, we would not become a utopia, but would sink into true decadence and evil.
My morals are similar to the 'Natural Law' principle. Everyone has certain rights such as the right to speak their mind, be able to protect themselves, own property, and so forth. Everyone can do what he or she wants so long as they do not infringe on someone else's rights. In other words my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins. As long as I follow these rules, I am a reasonably moral person. This morality gives me guidelines on what I absolutely must not do.
That being said, the above philosophy is the minimum for someone to not be evil. That does not mean someone is good in my book however. If someone is totally callous to true suffering, that person is probably not someone I would want to associate with. In other words, they're an asshole. However being an asshole doesn't make them evil.
As for the specific examples you mention, such as places where a dinner costs more than many people make in a month, I would be less concerned about my personal 'evil' in living well, and instead more interested in working toward a better society. In many places that are like you describe however, working for such ends are often illegal and you'll tend to disappear...
I also think he pointed to question 11 and said the things he did about it in the hopes that most people would answer that question. It was a clever psychological ploy on his part.
I suspect CMU has put itself in the position of no longer being a 'Common Carrier', and have made themselves very vulnerable legally. They probably would have been better off just making sure their security wasn't compromised and left it at that.
Anyone looking for hidden stuff on networked computers will use a program that shows the hidden shares. Its a total no-brainer, and there is plenty of software out there that will happily show you these shares. For example most remote administrative software will do this.
Encryption is really your only good bet.
Judge: So you admit breaking into the bank's accounting system?
Defendant: Sure, but the password was really easy. I only tried a few obvious ones. It was just the name of the bank in reverse.
Judge: Oh. Well, case dismissed then.
Easy or hard doesn't change the nature of the act itself. If CMU broke into private computers, then they should be tried and convicted just like anyone else. Of course they'll probably get away with it since they're a large institution.
We'll just have to disagree on Gaiman then. I do agree with you about Terry Pratchett though.
I've been a Star Trek fan for years. I'm old enough to have seen it when it first came out, and I liked it then, and I still do. All that being said, I just don't watch Star Trek any more. I watched TNG regularly, a little of DS9, and a whole three episodes of Voyager. I just can't stomach it anymore. The main characters aren't likable. Ever notice how the background characters are usually MORE complex in the Star Trek spinoffs? The number of background characters who became important because they turned out to be more interesting to the viewers is amazing. The main characters are simply too sublime for anyone to care about or like. In the original series, the main characters were extremely noble, but they were not humerlous paragons of duty, justice, and the Federation Way(tm). Star Trek next made the mistake of not keeping their universe believable or consistant. Everything occurs in a vacuum. They have episodes where they replace limbs and fix aging through use of the transporter. This is just one example of too many to count where they introduce a major technological advancement, and then have it disappear. In the original series, no real attempt was made to explain things like warp drive or the transporter. This was a Good Thing(tm) because it helped discourage cheap fixes using the technology. The capabilities of their technology was also more clearly defined, and so you didn't have nearly as much techno-babble B.S. The TNG movies have all been two hour long TV episodes. Who wants to spend $8 to see a two-hour long TV episode of anything? I could go on and on, but the truth is that these are symptoms, not the disease. I believe the real problems is: They don't have someone in charge of the universe as a whole. Gene is gone, and no one is steering the boat anymore. Mostly looks to be a bunch of different power cliques turning out various unrelated episodes and movies of varying quality. The original Star Trek was canceled before it could degenerate into something worthless. It was kind of obvious that they were running out of ideas, but they (were forced) to quit while they were ahead, and so were able to come back. What if instead the show had ran on until it ran itself into the ground? This is like the Elvis question - would Elvis have remained popular if he had never died? Or would he have faded into obscurity? At this rate, I'm betting on obscurity for Star Trek. Oh, shadows of Star Trek will hang around for a while in the form of lame spinoffs and stuff to siphon money away from the die-hard core fan-base, but that's all. I've heard people mention a Academy spinoff for example. Whoopee. That'd be the ultimate in inward-looking "who-cares" spin-offs. From Marco Polo to water polo. It would be cheap to produce though, and would fulfill the function I mentioned of siphoning money from a dwindling fan-base. Oh well, all things come to an end.
I am also a huge fan of Miyuzaki, and for the work that the "two horse power" studios produce. Nausicaa is still my favorite anime movie of all time, and the manga is one of the greatest literary works I've ever read.
That being said, I didn't care for this movie all that much. No one was more surprised than me :) I didn't like any of the characters, and so I didn't care what happened to them. Also, the moral of the movie took center stage, and thus weakened it. Overall, the movie just didn't have much depth to it. The movie also lacked an element of fun. Miyuzaki has produced fluff before, but when he produces fluff, it is usually fun fluff.
As for Neil Gaiman, everything he touches is gold. I havn't seen the dubbed version yet, but I have total faith in Neil Gaiman's ability. His Sandman series is a work of true genius, and I have no doubt that he did a good job with this.
The real story here is the mainstreaming of anime that is going on. I've been involved in anime for many years, and I've seen the anime tide growing. It will be interesting to see what impact this movie has. If it does well in the test theatres and is widely released, it could be considerable. But even if it doesn't do well, it won't matter that much. Anime has been eroding at the cultural and commercial barriers for a long time, and it will continue to do so until the dam breaks. As it stands, anime is already being mainstreamed at a very fast pace. It's not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of when and how.
In-house animation rendering. Several of us are working on animation software for generating animated movies out of home without the need for Crays and SGI machines that companies like Disney or ILM can afford.
In other words, if you don't want to use the hardware address option, you can use one of the tried and true methods that have always been used to generate unique IP addresses.
Also as the article pointed out, devices that don't need to be contacted, but just want to spit info out somewhere don't need a stable IP address.
Another reason is that guys from countries like America tend to be much more open about approaching women. One of my friends described how a dance he went to, all of the Japanese guys mostly hung out together, and didn't really approach the girls very aggressively. The reserved nature of Japanese society gives outsiders an edge in these things.
Anyway, I don't claim this to be true, just my opinions based one what some friends who have spent a lot of time in Japan said.
Any Japanese women with foreign boyfriends or husbands care to comment? Nothing like getting it from the source.
Support for games, not scientific calculations, is one of the primary forces pushing companies to make more powerful CPU's. I guarantee you that gamers are much more than 0.1% of the marketshare.
However it is doubtful that will remain true. If your grandfather gets comfortable with the computer, he'll start noticing software packages that will let him do other fun things. Examples include tracking investments, budgets, clip-art, a sailboat simulation (or whatever) program, a landscaping program, etc etc. You can lump all games into this as well. The list is endless. Your grandfather will see these in the stores and SOMETHING is going to catch his eye. Bet on it being a Windows program.
Then there is the new hardware he might want to buy. Gee, everything says things like "Windows 98 required."
Right now Linux is an up-and-comer OS, and ultimately it will make inroads into the Windows desktop marketshare. But not yet. For the average user who wants to be able to buy a wide range of software at the store, Windows is currently the best choice.
Microsoft won't even admit that there ever was a 16-bit Bob :)
After the debacle of "The Phantom Picture" they made a marketing decision to heighten interest in the series by killing someone off. It couldn't be any of the really important (human) characters, so that left the droids and Chewie.
Nothing like letting plot and character development in a series be driven primarily by what spin agents and marketers think will sell to turn said series into crap. You always wind up the same flavor of regurgitated pap.
Without the Second Amendment, our Constitution (or anybody else's Constitution) simply becomes another pretty piece of paper that can be thrown out when desired by someone with enough power. While freedom America is being erroded over time, gun ownership of the populace is a final check in our series of checks and balances. If things become intolerable, as a last resort the populace can always take matters into their own hands.
There is also the philosophical concept on which the Constitution is based. It is the idea that everyone has specific rights, and these rights cannot be taken from them unless they first infringe upon someone else's rights. The ability to be armed was enumerated as being one of those. In that light, taking away someone's abilty to arm (and thus protect themselves) is akin to violating any one of their rights - trying to take their property, trying to control their speech, taking their liberty, etc. Gun ownership has little impact on day to day living however, so it is an easy right to attack. Most people don't notice or don't care. They will notice or care if you try to tell them where to live, what to say, and take their stuff.
It's a concept that most of the world (including most Americans) don't understand or even agree with. I just happen to be one of those who does agree with it.
It is a lot more friendly to the environment than burning rocket fuel :)
Does anyone have more exact info on this? The article doesn't go into detail about how much of the actual fuel is replaced by this technology. It does mention a 20 percent reduction in the overall mass of the rocket, but what does that translate into? Anyone know?
Whoops. I just posted that and duplicated your idea. A beowulf cluster was certainly my first thought.